SI: Types of conformity and explanations for conformity Flashcards
(26 cards)
What is compliance?
- Compliance is the lowest level of conformity.
- Here a person changes their public behaviour, the way they act, but not their private beliefs.
- This is usually a short-term change and is often the result of normative social influence.
What does compliance not result in a change in?
Doesn’t result in a change in a person’s underlying attitude, only in the views and behaviours that they express in public!!
What is Internalisation?
What are individuals encourage to do when exposed to the views of other members of a group?
Internalisation is the deepest level of conformity.
Here a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs. This is usually a long-term change and often the result of informational social influence (ISI)
Internalisation
- Close examination of a groups position may do what?
- When is this particularly likely?
- What can this result in?
- May convince the individual that they are wrong and the group is right.
- Particularly likely if the group is generally trustworthy in their views and the individual has tended to go along with them on previous occassions.
- Can lead to acceptance of the group’s point of view, both publicly and privately.
What level of conformity is identification and what is it?
- Identification is the middle level of conformity.
- Here a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs, but only while they are in the presence of the group!
What elements does identification have in it?
Both elements of compliance and internalisation!
How does identification have elements of both compliance and internalisation?
As the individual accepts the attitudes and behaviours they are adopting as right and true (internalisation) but the purpose of adopting them is to be accepted as a member of the group (compliance)!
Give an example of identification.
A child might start smoking because “that’s what cool kids do” and they want to be seen as the “cool kid”.
What is the difference between complying and conforming?
- Each type of conformity has a different set of motivating conditions that lead to a conforming response.
- e.g. If an individuals prime motivation is to fit in with the rest of the group, they may comply rather than internalise the group’s position on a particular issue.
- Alternatively- if the primary motivation is to find the most appropriate way of responding in a particular situation, then internalising the group position may be seen as the most credible way of achieving this.
Is identification a long/ short term change?
Short term!
What social influence does identification result in?
Normative social influence.
Give a real life example of identification.
A person may decide to become a vegetarian because all of his new flat mates are vegetarian. However, whenever he walks past a MacDonald’s he can’t resist a Big Mac and when he is away from his flat mates he still eats meat.
When does identification take place?
Identification takes place we are surrounded by a particular group; we change our private beliefs while in the presence of the group and not permanently.
What is usually a result of informational social influence?
Internalisation
Give an example of internalisation.
If an individual is influenced by a group of Buddhists and converts to this faith, then their new religious way of life will continue without the presence of the group and they have internalised this belief.
What is the lowest level of conformity?
Compliance
Give an example of compliance
You might say that you like pop music because many other people in your class like pop music and you wish to fit in, however privately you dislike this style of music.
What is normative social influence?
Where a person conforms in order to be accepted and belong to a group. They do this because it is socially rewarding and/or to avoid social rejection (e.g. ridicule for not ‘fitting in’).
What important condition for normative social influence must occur?
What happens when this is the case?
- The individual must believe they are under surveillance by the group.
- When this is the case, people tend to conform to the majority position in public but do not necessarily internalise this view as it does not carry over into private settings nor does it endure over time (Nail, 1986)
What is informational social influence?
Informational Social Influence is where a person conforms to gain knowledge, or because they believe that someone else is ‘right’.
When does informational social influence occur?
- Occurs when an individual accepts information from others as evidence about reality.
- As well as having a need to be accepted, human beings also have a need to be confident that their perceptions and beliefs are correct
When is informational social influence more likely?
What happens as a result?
- Ambiguous situation (i.e. the right course of action is not clear) or where others are experts (i.e. we believe that others have more knowledge than we have.)
- The individual changes both public and private attitudes and behaviour- this is an example of internalisation.
Give positive and negative discussion point for types and explanations of conformity:
+ Research support for normative influence
+ Research support for informational influence
- Normative influence may not always be detected.
Smokers and energy conservation.
Write a PEEL paragraph discussing the research support for normative influence:
P - Research support.
E - Research (2003) found that adolescents exposed to simple message that majority of their age peers did not smoke were less likely to take up smoking as a result.
E - Later research (2008) found that hotel guests exposed to normative message that 75% of guests reused their towels each day (indication of energy conservation behaviour) reduced own towel use by 25%.
L - Studies demonstrate the power of NI and show the ecological validity of the idea. However, may not have population validity as these studies only done in US.